I’ve now had a THIRD reader report of a focus problem with the Nikon 24mm f/1.4G, a problem I first noted in my review. I am looking into this, and I will provide an analysis of my findings on the D3x and D3s. Nikon 24mm f/1.4G AF Survey

If you have the new 24mm f/1.4G, please take the above short survey. I’ll try to see if there is a common thread among camera bodies or focus mode and/or distance.

But four instances (mine plus 3 others) shows that something is very, very wrong with the new Nikon 24mm f/1.4G focusing. Caution advised until Nikon sorts this out.

David Hill reports the following:

My first copy of the lens, tested on two different D3s bodies, had frequent erratic focusing errors, essentially indicating a false focus that was way, way off. Particularly when attempting a landscape focus on anything further out than 10 feet, it would frequently focus on the foreground, or perhaps half way to the subject, when something near infinity was intended. Occasionally it would hit perfect focus on a distant landscape, and when it did the results were amazing, but it did not hit often enough to be useful in the manner that a professional wants to employ such a lens.

Also, it had issues being consistent on up close targets, but to a lesser degree. Its inconsistency fell into the type of pattern which cannot be addressed by an AF Fine Tune offset, and I'm sure you know what I mean by that without me having to elaborate. I posted some of my crops to DPReview, where you may have seen them. My issue is essentially very similar to that described in the reader report that you posted from Anrej today. One difference I would note is that mine would sometimes focus behind a near target, despite the near target filling the single AF point by three times the point's width. It was essentially just bad, and I was very disappointed.

Coincidentally, the problem I had with this lens was basically the same problem that I have been having with the 50/1.4G, except that the 24 is more extreme, by far the worst AF Nikkor I have owned. In fact, I hate to say "worst," because all my other AF Nikkors work great (after calibration or replacement in some cases, though). This has caused me some concern as to the future of Nikon's evolving G prime lineup.